Soon the Seawolf-class ship would be on the bottom, the Winged Serpent able to continue in its search of the offshore waters for any remaining Americans. When the American sank he would go to bed confident that the worst threat in the Pacific had been neutralized.
There was even more good news here, he realized. With the most formidable ship in the American submarine force on the bottom, how willing would the Americans be to send in an inferior Los Angeles-class ship? So this was it, the concluding battle of the American blockade.
The Second Captain took command of the submarine then, distracting Tanaka from his thought as the ship went into a violent maximum-rudder/maximum-speed maneuver to try to get the range of the incoming torpedoes.
The deck abruptly tilted twenty degrees to the right, almost throwing Tanaka into a row of Second Captain consoles. He grabbed a handhold to steady himself, watched the computer driving the ship. The ventriloquist SCM sonar system kicked in then, which meant the Second Captain’s calculations were complete and it could begin its work of confusing the incoming torpedoes.
Surely the system could fool two, perhaps three torpedoes — but eight? A terrible moment of doubt, but he shook it off.
Bruce Phillips was back in his submarine coveralls. Scott Court was stationed as officer of the deck with an augmented section-tracking team.
Phillips strapped on the battle-circuit headset in time to hear the sonar chief saying something about torpedo pings and” odd sonar groaning sounds coming from the southwest and more pings in a different frequency from the southeast. Phillips checked the bearing separation, realizing that he was closer to the action than he’d originally thought.
“Man silent battlestations,” he told Court. “One last time.”
CHAPTER 39
“Attention in the firecontrol team,” Kane said. His voice was steady, authoritative, but Pacino knew he was probably more frightened than he’d ever been in his life.
“We’re running from two Nagasaki torpedoes fired by the Destiny II class astern of us. The torpedoes are on the edge of our port baffles. I intend to jettison the caboose array to gain some speed, then turn fifteen more degrees westward. We have countermeasures loaded in the forward and after signal ejectors and we’ll launch those at the appropriate time. Carry on.”
Kane turned to Jeff Joseph, the skinny, odd-looking navigator and officer of the deck.
“Make that happen, O.O.D. Cut the wires, shut the doors and jettison the caboose. Move it.”
Pacino bent over the plot, wondering about the Piranha.
Tanaka held onto the handhold, his knuckles white as the ship executed the second loop of the figure-eight maneuver, the computer trying to determine the range to the incoming torpedoes. Finally the maneuver was complete, the ship now heading south at maximum turns.
The SCM sonar countermeasures were making so much noise and the pump jet propulsor was putting out so much turbulence that the rear-facing passive sonar system was unable to detect the arrival in the area of the second Seawolf ship.
“Captain, Sonar,” Gambini said to Phillips, “here’s the picture. At bearing one nine eight, southsouthwest, we have Target Seven, Japanese Destiny II class. Target Seven is turning max revs getting out of town because at bearing south I’ve got multiples Mark 50 torpedoes, all of them in pursuit of the Destiny II. At bearing one seven five, south-southeast I have at least two Nagasaki torpedoes in pursuit of the contact at bearing one six zero, southeast, which I’m classifying as a US Seawolf submerged submarine, designated Friendly One.”
“Skip the Friendly One bullshit. Master,” Phillips said. “Call it the Barracuda.”
“Aye, sir. So what we have here is that the Destiny II and the Barracuda have fired at each other. Tough to say who shot first, but since the Barracuda got off eight shots I’m guessing she fired first.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Phillips said, staring at pos one, the geographic plot, the God’s-eye view of the sea. The three ships, the Destiny, the Barracuda and the Piranha formed a triangle with Piranha at the top, coming in from the north. At the bottom left the Destiny was running southwest away from eight Mark 50s. At the bottom right the Barracuda was sprinting to the northeast trying to get away from two Nagasaki torpedoes. An image came into his mind of the Barracuda being chased by two sharp-teethed black muscular dogs. He had to do something.
The first order of business was the Destiny II. “Attention in the firecontrol team. One crisis at a time. We’re going to put Vortex unit seven down the bearing line to Target Six, the Destiny bearing south-southwest. Let’s get that out of the way now. Firing point procedures. Vortex seven. Target Six, bearing one nine eight.”
“Ship ready.”
“Weapon ready.”
“Solution ready.”
“Shoot on generated bearing.”
“Set.”
“Standby.”
“Shoot!”
“Fire!”
The roaring of the missile ignition was once again deafening. The watchstanders had all plugged their ears with their fingers as the solid-rocket-fueled underwater-missile launched and sailed off to the south.
“Attention in the firecontrol team,” Phillips shouted over the roar of the missile. “I intend to try to do something for the Barracuda. Everyone just hold on for a second.” Phillips leaned over the weapon-control console, where round-headed Tom McKilley sat looking up at him. “Weps, is there any way we can program the Vortex to detonate at a particular bearing and range without it homing on a target?”
“You mean disable the blue laser and have it count seconds until it’s at a certain bearing and range to own ship, then go off?”
“Right?”
“Skipper, I don’t know, but I’m sure as hell going to find out,” McKilley said, reaching to the overhead for the technical manual.
“Don’t you have its tech manual on the outline software?”
“Yes sir. One moment.” McKilley was becoming flustered, flashing through the software to the help-screens, going through one after the other.
It had been two minutes since the missile launch and still no explosion. Phillips looked back at the geographic plot, deciding to work on the range to the Barracuda. To do it would be violating yet another hallowed submarine tactic by using active sonar. Active sonar was the practice of pinging a noise into the sea, waiting for the ping to bounce off the object of interest and return to the listening sonar set. The time delay and the sound velocity determined the two-way-trip length, which divided in two was the range to the contact. It was a tactic unused for decades. A stealthy submarine attempting to remain undetected would never ping out a noise. It defeated the purpose and besides, passive listen-only sonar could be just as effective, although it took the ship longer to determine the range to the contact. But the entire ocean knew Piranha was there — hell, he’d just launched the loudest weapon ever known to man. Another noise in the form of a ping would make no difference and would save time to getting the Barracuda’s exact location in the sea.
The only problem was that active sonar was subject to interpretation just as passive sonar was, the human brain definitely part of the combat-control system. And the sonarmen were generally not too great at active sonar, an unpracticed art. Still, if anyone could do it, Gambini could.
“Master Chief, I want an active range to the Barracuda. Can you do it?”
“Yes sir. It’ll just take a moment to line up.”
“Ping when you’re ready and step on it. Master. Weps! What’s the status of the answer? Can we put an explosion at a preplanned point in space?”